SPARC has issued an action alert to save PubChem from the lobbying by the American Chemical Society to shut it down. Excerpt: 'The American Chemical Society (ACS) is calling on Congress to shut down the NIH's PubChem, a freely accessible database that connects chemical information with biomedical research and clinical information, organizing facts in numerous public databases into a unified whole. It is a critical component of NIH's Molecular Libraries Initiative, which in turn is a key element of the NIH strategic "roadmap" to speed new medical treatments and improve healthcare. ACS claims that PubChem competes with Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS). In reality, PubChem and the Chemical Abstracts Service databases are complementary, not duplicative. If ACS succeeds in eliminating [PubChem], scientific progress will be throttled. ACS lobbying efforts are targeting: the Ohio delegation in Congress, Rep. Ralph Regula (OH), Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, and Senator Arlen Specter (PA), Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies. Please consider contacting Rep. Regula (tel. 202-225-3876, fax 202-225-3059> and Senator Specter (tel. 202-224-4254, fax 202-228-1229). If you live in Ohio, please also contact your U.S. Representative and Senators (Ohio delegation contact information is available at http://www.senate.gov/ and http://www.house.gov/.)
'Situation. [1] ACS/CAS has expressed concern that PubChem is a threat to the financial survival of the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS). PubChem provides free access to its database; CAS charges a fee for researchers to use its database. ACS has demanded that NIH shut down PubChem or substantially alter it so as not to compete with CAS. [2] NIH met with ACS officials to seek a solution that would resolve the society's concern. Since the initial meeting, there have been multiple communications between NIH and ACS leadership. ACS has effectively broken off discussions, leaving the issues unresolved. NIH is willing to continue discussions with ACS/CAS to benefit the scientific community and biomedical research. For example, NIH has said it is willing to link to the CAS database, essentially providing CAS with access to a new market. Medical researchers infrequently use CAS at this time. [3] Opposition to PubChem is from the ACS leadership. It is not clear if ACS members are aware of the issue and if they would agree with the ACS leadership's position. [4] NIH staff analysis shows that PubChem and CAS overlap relatively little in terms of content.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/19/2005 06:08:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
